The year is 2009. The place, the internet. A young kid, let's call him Bob for our purposes here, was browsing some random video game forum he frequented when he came across an intriguing conversation.

It began with a weird post from one guy to another saying how he bought some currency called 'Bitcoin'. It was still in its infancy then and very few people really knew about it or were interested in it. That didn't stop the original poster though.. He posted that he had made several thousand dollars out of this currency without anything more than sheer dumb luck!

People laughed at his posts but little did they know... Bob heard every word loud and clear. So many years of being taunted by peers were channeled into what happened next. The words that this guy spoke rang true in Bob's ears and he was inspired to take action. He wanted in!

He immediately started scrounging up money from his savings and other sources just to buy some Bitcoin of his own. It wasn't easy, not by any stretch of the imagination, but after a few weeks of dedicated searching Bob finally found it - an online marketplace selling them for $5 per piece! This was such a steal so he bought as much as he could... Five pieces to be exact.

Five days went by.. Nothing happened. No change whatsoever occurred with those five measly Bitcoins! Except they weren't measly anymore now were they? Thanks to how many times they had been traded/purchased Bob had now accrued a whopping total of $25. Not bad for an eleven year old!

That was when things started getting weird. The guy with all the Bitcoin posts came back and declared that he had made another trade, only this time it involved one piece of Bitcoin being traded for what amounted to about five dollars worth of some other currency called Litecoin. It was still pretty confusing but hey, Bob didn't care so much about how it all worked as long as his investment paid out in full!

The man posted again just three days later saying he sold all five pieces of Bitcoin at $8 per piece and his investment tripled over night! He even went above and beyond by sending the kid who inspired him a small fortune of $10 in return for his inspiration.

What happened next was crazy, although it wasn't something anyone expected. Bob's investment managed to reach all the way up to $40 by day seven! He had tripled his money in just one week when everyone told him he'd be lucky to make a single penny... That is when he decided to show them all.

Bob gathered up every cent of that money, scraped it together with whatever meager earnings his parents were willing or able to provide him with at the time, and used it all to buy four more pieces of Bitcoin. This time they cost him about $80 each but hey, he had faith in this system so who cared? He just knew that they would give him back ten times the worth he paid for them eventually.

Five days later.. He sold all five of those pieces after they rose to about $12 each. That accounted for a total gain of $60! Bob was now up over two hundred dollars and feeling great about his investment! He even bought some goods online with that money which he had always wanted but didn't have enough cash to buy. They made him feel good.. And rich too!

Then came the real challenge, the test of skill if you will. When Bob brought up all his earnings from selling off his Bitcoins many months ago, kept them in safe storage until the time was right, he then decided it was time to make reinvestment into this world-changing digital commodity again. This time he bought in at $80 each for seven pieces, all the while keeping the other three safely tucked away.

Of course this was no easy task! He had to beg and plead with his family many times just to get them to hand over checks or cash so that he could buy more Bitcoin.. This time it ended up costing him about $560 but when one of his Bitcoins reached $266 Bob couldn't believe it!

He went on to sell off four of them once they hit about $310 or so, netting himself nearly another thousand dollars! What's even better is that he still had two left over which were worth roughly almost four hundred dollars apiece by then due to having tripled in past value already. The future certainly seemed bright for this young child...

Even after all the time had passed Bob still remembered the words he learned from that man back in December. He still remembered how much fun it was to buy things online with his Bitcoins and how exciting it was when they went up in value! It felt like magic every single time, every purchase turned into pure profit for him.. Only now it seemed like there was even more potential for this investment than ever before.

"Sell one of your Bitcoins," The man had said, "And you'll never know what kind of amazing things will happen next!" So while letting two pieces sit Bob sold off one of them. That gave him another $550 or so which he wanted to use to make another trade later on.

It didn't take too much longer when the price of Bitcoin continued to rise up and up and up! He watched in awe as it surpassed $1,000 each within a week or two. Then came the day when he decided that he would sell his final two pieces at $1400 apiece or so, netting himself nearly another nine thousand dollars in total from them alone! This was all thanks to following one simple rule:

"Sell your Bitcoins." The man had said. "Just like the coins you buy.. You'll never know what kind of wonderful things will happen next!"

A bit more time passed and Bob finally realized how crazy this world really was! Many people were quitting their jobs just to become full-time Bitcoin traders! They were all making money just by snatching up the latest cryptocurrency hot fix, just by buying in right when prices seemed to peak. It was amazing how quick they went up.. And even more amazing how easy it was becoming to sell them off for a profit too.

On December 15th Bob had gotten his first four Bitcoins at $80 each and within three days they were worth about $260 apiece, giving him a total gain of about five hundred bucks. He remembered fondly how he'd felt when that happened but then on January 3rd twenty-four hour price change saw the Ethereum go from about two hundred fifty dollars all the way up over three hundred dollars in value! Even after having sold off half his original stash for much more than he'd bought them for, that left him with nearly $41,000 just over the course of two months!

Ethereum prices went on to rise up and down in waves quite regularly after that. They dipped below a thousand dollars apiece for a while before going back up again.. Then dipped all the way down to less than four hundred a piece around mid-March before skyrocketing up over one thousand each soon after! And that's when Bob decided it was time to sell off his remaining two pieces. He did it because The Man had said so... It seemed like such a good idea at the time too.

A month later Ethereum prices were swirling around seven hundred fifty dollars per coin or so.. Soon they began to dive down to three hundred dollars per piece before skyrocketing back up above five hundred each in quick fashion! The market seemed so unstable when all this happened.. But after about another month prices stabilized quite a bit. Even though Bob had followed the man's advice, he was still left with well over $100,000 in extra cash made from his initial four coins.

After watching the price of Ethereum continue to fluctuate for nearly another full year it seemed like things would never slow down. That's when Bob remembered something that the man said to him one day when they first met all those months ago. It seemed just as relevant now as ever even if he didn't understand why at the time:

"Who cares how much you buy? Just sell some off here and there.. You'll never know what kind of wonderful things will happen next!"

Bob's actions had proven the man to be right on all accounts. He'd sold just two of his coins at one time or another, only to watch them continue to grow in value over time. And now he was sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of crypto cash which he could do with as he pleased! But instead, Bob decided to go ahead and give all of it back by donating it to global charities who would put it towards helping out those who were less fortunate than him.

"This is my payment for doing good..", he said. "You can't take this with you."

The man silently smiled before continuing on his way.

-END OF ARTICLE-

This is a short story about what might happen if you buy some Bitcoins, regardless of the fact that everyone makes fun of you for it at first. This article was inspired by an actual event which happened with someone who I talked to online once upon a time. This specific person found me on Reddit and said they were interested in investing because my posts there made sense... So I told them about Bitcoin and Ethereum back when both had prices hovering around $200-$400 per coin. I explained how it works.. And then went ahead and offered to send them some extra coins too just so they could have some of their own more easily.

Fast forward nearly two more years later after the price has climbed and dropped and climbed and dropped pretty consistently with both coins... They went from $200 to $400 to $800, back down to $400 again, up over a thousand dollars per coin around June of 2017, down all the way down past five hundred bucks each shortly after that before skyrocketing back up into the thousands by December. Then it happened.. The person mentioned that they were going to sell off most of what they had because they didn't believe in cryptocurrencies anymore. I was a bit sad at first but then I realized this was their choice... So I told them to enjoy it while they can.

"Who cares how much you buy? Just sell some off here and there.. You'll never know what kind of wonderful things will happen next."